Stock Pumping Is Tainting Many Financial Websites

Forbes.com, The Street, and other sites have been duped by deceptive writers. Is this the new normal?

In this column's debut a little over a year ago, I wrote that we at Barrons.com thought it high time to scrutinize the expanding body of online investment advice.

"Written by a combination of journalists, full- and part-time professional investors and analysts, and home-based hobbyists, the work is often well-reasoned and worth reading," I wrote of sites, including Seeking Alpha, Forbes.com and TheStreet. "But some articles generate more heat than light…Still worse, some articles have the taint of stock...